


Except When They Aren't

by VillainousQueer



Category: Original Work, humans are space orcs - Fandom
Genre: Autistic Character, Except When They Aren't Sometimes, Humans are space orcs, Interspecies Relationship, M/M, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21662476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VillainousQueer/pseuds/VillainousQueer
Summary: A short story about how humans aren't always space orcs... and how that can be okay.(I wanted some representation in this fandom of disabled/handicapped humans, especially humans that were socially handicapped, like me)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 278
Collections: Humans Are Space Orcs





	Except When They Aren't

Humans aren’t always sturdier than you. Some of them need tools to walk, or sit down a lot, or need to put frames that hold lenses to their eyes so they can see at all. Some actually can’t ingest all the toxins other humans can. Some are missing organs, or limbs. Some have entire bodily systems that don’t work right, making them ill all the time, or on and off. Some get sick really easily. Some have over-reactive immune systems. 

They aren’t always inclined to pack-bond with you, either. Some of them are downright hostile, and some are absolutely fucking malevolent. Other humans say they’re ‘grumpy’ or ‘ornery’ or try to explain it with strange ideas about how all humans come in twelve personalities or two types, or four humours. But really, it seems too nuanced. Some humans pack-bond with you, some would literally rather pack-bond with a worn-out bundle of rags they call ‘my stuffed animal’ and fling hostile words at you for asking them to dinner.

If you’re patient, though, sometimes you can figure it out. Sometimes, the human that’s silent and fearful in person is eloquent in text. Sometimes their art can speak for them. Sometimes it can’t. Sometimes that’s just how they are, and their other humans love them anyway. Or sometimes they don’t. Those are the loneliest humans, and they tend to pack-bond with objects or animals instead of sapients. But if you _can_ bond with them, it’s very rewarding. 

Yanaton was like that.

-

Elsk was used to humans recoiling in fear from his eight-eyed, eight-limbed appearance, and had seen a little of the human relationship with the animals they called ‘spiders’. Many humans feared and loathed spiders. Elsk didn’t expect Yanaton to be different, and had been warned by the other passengers and crew to avoid Yanaton whenever possible, as he was not a very friendly human. 

It was a complete accident, Elsk was always a little out of sorts just before a moult, and couldn’t see well. 

‘Oh,’ said a human voice. ‘Oh hi.’

Elsk stood absolutely still. ‘I mean you no harm,’ he said, as quietly as he could. 

‘You’re _gorgeous_,’ Yanaton said in reply. ‘Oh wow, what are you? You look like a spider. I love spiders. Can you jump? Do you make silk? Spiders make silk did you know that?’ 

Elsk was treated to a wall of monologue, Yanaton didn’t seem to need him to speak, so he didn’t, listening as Yanaton told him everything there was to know about spiders, paying him effusive compliments as he went along.

‘He’s not so bad,’ Elsk said, when he finally got back to where he meant to go, which was the bridge, to look in on some wiring. ‘The human. He talked to me for a long time.’

This fell into a silence, and Elsk heard it. ‘…What?’

‘Yanaton… hasn’t spoken to _anyone,’_ the captain said, crest flaring in interest and faint alarm. ‘He handed us cards that stated he did not communicate verbally, and has been communicating exclusively through blip messages.’

‘Well,’ Elsk said, more puzzled than proud, ‘he spoke to me almost without pausing for a few arns at least. All about spiders.’ 

Elsk found out from other crew that Yanaton had been looking for him while he’d been holed up in his cabin during his moult, and was waiting for him when he came back, handing him a strange piece of flat art made of paper in different colours and shapes. The words on it glittered, and were in careful approximation of Elsk’s name, in his own language. Inside were hand-written words, as careful as a child’s first, but with an adult’s control of the pen_, _saying how beautiful Elsk was, how Yanaton wanted to know him better, wanted to court him, wanted to work toward being mates, and that the card was a human custom, a ‘valentine’ to ask permission to do that. 

Elsk had no idea humans were so formal! All the stories he’d heard painted them as casual, the way most milk-furs were. Maybe that was part of this human’s… oddity? Elsk didn’t mind, it had been a while since he’d been courted. Such effort had gone into this ‘valentine’!

‘I should like that,’ Elsk said, ‘we will have to learn one another, but you’ve given me much to go on…’ 

Yanaton smiled, and Elsk would learn, later, how precious it was, to have those eyes focussed on his.


End file.
